soy maestra bilingüe del quinto grado en una primaria en tejas. i am a bilingual fifth-grade teacher at an elementary school in texas. and if you'll pardon my language, the NEA has no fucking respect for teachers' privacy.

domingo, noviembre 20, 2005

saludos desde dallas

scene from a bar:random guy: hey, so what do you do for a living?maestra: i'm a teacher.random guy: (very enthusiastically) cool! what grade???maestra: first.random guy: (smiling) do you like it?maestra: i'm on vacation right now so i stay sane. but yeah.random guy: (done with teacher talk) cool.

scene from a bar, version 2:random guy: hey, so what do you do for a living?maestra: i'm a teacher.random guy: (very enthusiastically) hey, my mom is a teacher! what grade?maestra: first.random guy: (smiling) how long have you been teaching?maestra: two years.random guy: (done with teacher talk) cool.

sin duda, tengo una de esas conversaciones cada vez que conozco a alguien nuevo en un bar. sometimes they even say something inane like, "man, my first grade teacher was HOT! Ms. Huntley, DAMN!" the best occupation-related conversations i've had have been with other teachers and with firefighters. why it's so hard for everyone else to ask me anything more substantial about my job is beyond me.

i always get "but you look 18. do you really teach high school? i bet your kids run all over you.(back pedaling) but i guess that's a good thing. i mean, you'll look young when you're old...yeah." (silence)

or

"wow, are you one of the cool teachers? like, the one who doesn't make their kids do any work? i had this teacher who didn't make us do shit...(insert story here)... anyway, i bet you don't make your students do anything, do you?"

When I go to bars with my teacher friends, we get the same ridiculous conversations from men. I inevitably meet someone whose mother or sister is a teacher. Oh, and the other one we always get: "I never had teachers who looked like you when I was in school!" Yawn.

They say "inane" things because they have no idea what teaching is all about...but not all men are the same, fortunately.One time in Mexico, a guy once I told him I was a teacher told me a joke about teaching the vowels... : )Others have asked about my schooling...

I agree, and being a man, I can unfortunately say that what you describe in this post applies to both sexes. I can't tell you how many hours I've listened to friends who are in medical school describe their work. Conversations about teaching with most non-teachers last about thirty seconds. Why is this?